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THE GREAT CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA 



SPEECH 

or 

HON. CLEMKNT J.AIHl) VALLANDIGIIAM, 

OF OHIO, 

IN T»E HOUSE OF REPRESKNTATI VES, JANUARY 14, 1863. 



Mr. VALLANDIGHAM. Mr. SiH-akcr, in- .^ 
dors- d ;U til.' r> i-eiit tli<riioii within llic finmo dis- i! 
:rii!t fi)i whiih I still hold a scat mi this floor, ijy It 
a majotity four times greater than Rver before, I 
speak to-day in the name and by tlioaulhoriiy of 'j 
:ho people who, for six years, have intrusted m>' 
with the office of a Representative. Loyal, in tlif 'i 
true and hijrhesit sense of the word, to the Con- '' 
stituiion and the Union, they have proved tliem- ,1 
Kelves devotedly attached to and worthy of the 
liberties to secure which the Union and the Con- 
Mtitution were estai)lish««l. With candor and free- 
dom, therefore, as their Rtpnsentative, and tmicli 
plainness of speech, but with the dignity and de- 
cency due to this presence, I propose to consider 
the STATE OF TICK Ukion to-day, and to inquire 
what the duty i.s of every public man and every I' 
citizen in this the very crisis of the Great Revo- j 
iution. jj 

It is now two years, sir, since Con;^res8 assem- 
bled soon after the Presidential election. A sec- '| 
tiotial anti-slavery party had then just succeeded !I 
ihrough the forms of the Constitution. For the first , 
time a President hud been chosen ypon a platform 
of avowed hostility to an institution peculiar to '■} 
nearly one half of the States of the Union, and : 
•ifho had himself proclaimed that there was an ir- 'i 
repressihie co'nflict because of tiiat institution be- " 
tween the States; and that the Union could not '' 
endure "part slave and part free." Conjjress i 
met, therefore, in the midst of the firofoundf st 
agitation, not liere only but throuj^hout the entire 
South. Revolution glared upon us. Repeatid j; 
efforts for conciliation and compromise were at- : 
tempted in Congress and out of it. All were re- i 
jectcd by the party just coming into power, except 1 1 
only the promi.se in the last hours of the session, ; 
and that, too, against the consent of a majority ;I 
of that party both in the Senate and Houne; that i 
Congress — not the Executive — sliould never be ' 
authorized to abolish or interfere with slavery ( 
in the Staf's where it existed. South Carolina 'I 
seceded; Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, | 
LouisiTna, and Texas speedily fol|f><vrd. The \\ 
confederate government wr» n.iH'.- -d. T" 



other slave States held back. Virginia demnnffW 
a peace congress. The commissioners nift, and, 
after some time, agrei-d upon terms of final adjust- 
ment. IJut neither in the Senate nor the House 
were they allowed even a respectful consideration. 
The President elect left his home in Februarv^ 
and journeyed towards this capital, jesting as he 
came; proclaiming that the crisis was only arti- 
ficial, and that *' nobody was hurt." He entered 
this city undtr cover of night and in disgoise. On 
the 4ih of March he was inaugurated, surrounded 
by soldiery; and, swearing to support the Con- 
stitution of the United States, announced in the 
.lame breath that the platform f)f his party should 
be the law unto him. From that moment all hope 
of peaceable adjustment fled . But for a fittlo" while, 
eitiierwithunsteadfastsincerityorin premeditated 
deceit, the policy of peace was proclaimed, even 
to the evacuation of Sumter and the other Federal* 
forts and arsenals in the seceded Statrs. Why 
that policy was suddenly abandoned , time wiw 
fully di.sclose. But just after the spring elections,, 
and the secret meeting in this city of the Qot- 
ernors of several northern and western States, 
fleet carrying a large number of men 'was sci 
Aiwn ostensibly to provision Fort Sumter. T( 
authorities of South Carolina eagerly accepted tKV*.^ 
challenge, and bombarded the fort into 8urre^nder„ 
while the fleet fired not a gun, b.it, just so soon 
as the fliig was struck, bore away and returned U> 
tiie North. It was Sunday, the 14th of April,. 
18C1: and^that day the President, in fatal hasto 
and without the advice or corsent of Congress^ 
issued his proclamation, dated the next day, call- 
ing out seventy-five thousand militia for three • 
months, to repossess the for'.s, pMces, and prop- 
erty .seized from the Uni'od States, and com- 
manding the insurgents to disperse in twenty days. 
•Again the gage was taken up by the South, and 
thus the flames of a civil war, the grandest, 
bloodiest, and saddest in history, liErhted uf» 
th« whole heavens. Virginia forthwith seceded. 
North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkah.«as M- 
lo'Vfd; Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Mis- 
j/ere in a blaze of agitation, and within • 



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week from the proclamation, tlio line of the Con- 
federate States was transftrred from tlie cotton 
States to the Potomac, and almn.st to the Oliio and 
the Missouri, and their population and fighting 
men doiil>K>d. • 

In tiie North and West, too, tiie storm raged 
with the fury of a hurricane. Never in history 
was anything eoual to it. Men, women, and chil- 
dren, native anil. foreign born, Ciinrch and State, 
clergy and laymen, were ail swept along with the 
current. Distinction of age, sex, station, party, 
perished in an instant. Thousands l)ent before the 
tempest; and here and there only was one found 
bold "noiigh, toolhardy enough it may have been, 
to bend rmt, and him it smoie as a consuming fire, 
''he spirit of persecution for opinion '.s sake, al- 

ost extinct in the Old World, now, by some 
sterious transmigration, appeared incarnate in 
■Vew. Social relation.s were di.ssolvcd; friend- 
snips bioken up; the ties of family and kindred 
snapped asunder. Stripe^ and hanging were every 
where threatened, sometimes executed. Assas- 
sination was invoked; slanil-rsharpened his tooth; 
falsehood crushed truth to the earth; reason fled; 
madness reigned. Not justice only escaped to the 
•kies, but peace relumed to the bosom of God, 
whence she came. Tlie gospel of love peiished; 
hate sat enthroned, and the .sacrifices of blood 
smoked upon every altar. 

But the reign of the mob was inaugurated only 
to be sup[)lanted by ihe iron domination iif arbi- 
trary [lower. Constitutional limitation was broken 
down; habeas corpus fell; liberty of the press, of 
speech, of the person, of mails, of travel, of one's 
own house, and of religion; the right to beararms, 
due process of law, judicial trial, trial by jury, 
trial at ail; every badge and muniment of free- 
dom in republican government or kingly govern- 
ment — Vll went down at a blow; and the chief law 
officer of the crown — 1 beg |iardon, sir, but it is 
easy novif to fall into ihiscnurtly language — the At- 
torney Gftncral, first of all men, proclaimed in the 
Uni ted Siaies the max iniur[li>man servility: IFhal- 
ewer pleaseklhe President, thai is law! Pri.soners 
of State we»e then fir.-st heard of here. Midnight 
and arbitrary arrests commenced; travel was in- 
terdicted ;|lrude embars^cied; passports demanded; 
Imstiles wi-re introduced; strange o.iihs invented; 
a secret plolice organi/.ed; " piping" bt^gan; in* 
formers muliiplieii; spies now first appeared in 

Ainericii. ' The ri;;hl to declare war, to raise and 

support armies, and to provide and maintain a 
navy was iisur|)i i by the E.xeeulive; and in a lit- 
tle mon; than two months a land and naval force 
of over three hundred thiiu.<aiid men was in the 
field or upon the sea. An army of |.uljlic plun- 
derers followed, and coirupiion sirngglcd with 
power in tViendly strifi- for the inasti'ry at home. 

On the 4ih «f* July Congrtss met, not to seek 
pevce; not to n-buke u.'<ur|<aiion nor to restrain 
power; not certainly i.Mleliberate; not even to le- 
jjislnle, but to rejjisier and ratify the edicts and 
at.'! of the lix< 1 uiiv. : and in your lan'jiiage,. sir, 
upon the first day of the session, lo invoke a uni- 
Tcrsal bajuism of fire and blond amid the roar of 
cannon and the din of battle. F'rce spcich was 
had only at the risk of a prison; possibly of life. 
<3ppusilion wu» silenced by the fittrce clamor of 



" disloyalty." All business not of war was votetl 
out of order. Five hundred thousand men, an im- 
mense navy, and twoand hundred fifty millions of 
money were speedily granted. In twenty, at most 
in sixty days, the rebellion was to be crushed out. 
To doubt it was treason. Abject submission was 
demanded. Lay down your arms, sue for peace, 
surrender your leaders — forfeiture, death — this 
was the only language heard on this floor. The 
galleries responded; the corridors echoed; and 
contractors and placemen and other venal patriots 
everywhere gnashed upon the friends of peace as 
they passed by. In five weeks seventy-eight pulj- 
lic and private acts and joint resolutions, with de- 
claratory resolutions, in the Senate anil House, 
quite as numerous, all full of slaughter, were hur- 
ried through without delay and almost without 
debate. 

Thus was CIVIL wak inaugurated in America. 
Can any man to-day see the end of it.' 

And now pardon me, sir, if I pause here a mo- 
ment to define my own positional this time upon 
this greai question. 

Sir, I am one of that number who have opjiosed 
abiditionism, or the political di-velopmeiit of the 
anti-slavery sentiment of the" North and West, 
from the beginning. In school, at colli-ge,at the 
liar, in jiublic assemblies, in the Legislature, in 
Congress, boy and man, as a private citiziii and 
in public life, in time of pence and in time of war, 
at all times and at every sacrifice, I have fought 
against it. It cost me ten years' exclusion from 
ofllce and honor, at that period of life when honors 
are sweetest. No matter: 1 learned early to do 
right and to wail. Sir, ^l is but the develop- 
ment of the .spirit of intermeddling, whose chil- 
dren are strife and murder. Cain troubled him- 
self about the .sacrifices of Abel, and slew him. 
Most of the wars, contentions, litigation, and 
bloodshed, from the beginning of time, have been 
its fruits. The spirit of non-inlerveniion is the 
very sjiirit of peace and coiicortl. I do not be- 
lieve that if slavery hail never existed here we 
would have had no sectional controversiis. This 
very civil war might hiive hapiieoed fifty, per- 
haps a hundred years later. Other and stronger 
causes of discogtent and of disunion, it may be, 
have existed betwien other Stales and sections, 
and are now being developed every day into ma- 
turity. The spirit of intervention assumed the 
form of abolitionism because slavery was oil ions 
in name and by associatiim to the northern mind, » 
and because it was that wllich most ol)viously 
marks the difl'eient civilizations of the two sec- 
lions. The South her.'elf, in her early mid later ^ 
1 florts to rid herself of it, had exposed llie weak 
and oflensivi; parts of slavery to the world. Abo- 
lition inlerim ddling taught hur ni last to .search 
for and defend the assumed social, economic, and 
political meriianil values of the institution. Ijut 
there never was an hour from the beginning wht-n 
it did not .serin lo me as clear as tin; siin at broad 
noon, that the agitation in any form in the North 
and VVt.st of Ihe slavery question must sooner or 
later end in disunion niid'civil war. This wus 
th.' opinion and prediction for yais of Whig and 
I.Vmocratii- siaiesmeii alike; and after the unfor- 
tunate dissolution of the Whig|)ariy in 1854, and 



the organization nf the present Repul>lican party 
upon iin I'xclusivfly aiiii-slavory and sectiDiiiil 
i)asis, the <!vcnt was in('vital)l<'; hrcausp, id tlie 
then existing temper of tht; pulilic mind, and af(iT 
the education tlirouich ihc press and by ihi; pul- 
pit, the U'cture and ilic pnliiical canvass for iwmty 
years, of a generation taught to liale shivery and 
the Stiuih, tiie success nf that party, possessed, 
as it was, of every en;;ine of political, liiisiiiess, 
social, and rciiijious infltieiice, was certain. It 
was (inly a i^ni'.siion of time, nnd short lime. 
Such was its stren;;tli, indeed, that I do not lie- 
lieve that the union of tiic Democratic party in 
1860 on any candidate, even though he had lieen 
supported also liy ilie entire so-called conserva- 
tive or anti-Lincoln vote of the ci>untry, would 
have avaiji'd to defeat it; and if it had, the suecess 
of the abolition party would only have bei'O post- 
poned four years longer. The disease had fnst- 
'■iied too strongly upon the system to be In aled 
until it had run its course. The doctrine of the 
" irrepressible conflict" had been taught too long 
and acci'pted too widely and earnestly to die out, 
until it should culminate in secession and dis- 
union; and, if coercion were resorted to, then in 
civil war. I believed from the first that it was 
the purpose of some of the njiostles of that doc- 
trine to force a collision between the North and 
thf South, either to bring about a separation or 
to find a vain but bloody pretext for abolishing 
slavery in the States. In any event, 1 knew, or 
thought I knew, that the end was certain collision, 
and death to the Union. 

Believing thus, I have for years past denounced 
those who tauijiil that doctrine with all the ve- 
hemence, the lutterness, ifyouchoosi! — I thought 
ila righteous, a patriotic bitterness — of anearnest 
and impassioned natiiie. Thinking thus, I fore- 
warned all who believed the doctrine, or followed 
the party which taught it, with a sincerity and n 
depth of conviction as profound as ever |>cnelrated 
the heart of man. Anil when, for eight years past, 
over and over again, I have proclaimed t<i the 
people that the success of a sectional anti-slavery 
[tarty would be the b>'^inniii^ of disunion and civil 
war in America, I believed it. I did. I had read 
history, and studied human nature, and meditated 
for years upon the character of our institutions 
and form of government, and of the people South 
as well as North; and I could not doulu the event. 
Rut the people did not believe me. nor those older 
and wiser and greate^than 1. They rejected the 
prophecy, and stoned the prophets. The candidate 
of the Ri'publican party was chosen President. 
Secession ijegan. Civil war was imminent. It was 
no petty insurrection; no temporary combination 
fo obstruct the execution of the lawB in certain 
Slates; but a iiKVot.imov, systematic • deliberate, 
determined, and with the consent of ^majority 
of the people of each Slate which seeded. Cause- 
less it may have been; wicked it may have been; 
but there it was; not to he railed et, still less to 
be laughed it, but to be dealt with by statesmen 
as a fact. Nodisplay of visoror force alone, hdW- 
cver sudden or^reat, could have arrested it even 
at the outset. It was' disunion at last. Til's wolf 
had come. But civil war had not y. t followed. 
In my deliberate and most solemn judgm' nt. 



there was but one wise and masterly mode ofdeal- 

!! ing with if. Non-coercion would avert civil war, 
t| and compromise crush out both aliolitionisni and 
I seetsHion. The parent and the child would thus 

I both perish. But a resort to force would at once 

I precipitate war, hasten secession, ex tend disunion, 
i! and, while it lasted, utterly cut iilV all hopeofcom- 
!l jiromise. I believed that war, if long enough con- 

' linued, would be final, eternal disunion. I said 
'I it; I meant it; and, accordingly, to the utmo.st of 
Ij my ability and influence, I exerted myself in lie- 
|l half of the policy of non-coercion. It was adopted 
j' by Mr. Buchanan's Administration, with tin- al- 
ij most unanimous consent of the Democratic and 

II itonstitulional Union parties in and out of Con- 
!| gress; and, in February, with the concurrence of 
jl a majority oflhe llepiiblican party in the Senate 
]' and this lloiise. But that p'lrty, most disastrously 

! for the country, refused all compromise. }l«w>. 
•| indeed, could th.-y accept any .' That which the 
I' South demanded nnd the Democratic and con- 
': servative parties of the North and West Wf-re 
I' willing to grant, and which alone could avail to 
Ij keep the peace and save the Union, implied a 

I I surrender of the sole vital element of tlie party 
!' and its platform— of the very principle, in fact, 
!1 upon which it had just won the contest for the 
II Presidency; not, indeed, by a majority of the 
I popular vote — the majority was nearly a million 
M against it — but under the forms of the Constitu- 
tion. Sir, the crime, the "high crime" of the 
Republican parly was not so much its refusal to 
compromise, as its original organization upon a 
basis and doctrine wholly incoiisisleiit with the 
stability oflhe Constitution and the pence of the 
Union. 

But to resume: the session of Congress expired. 

The President elect was inaugurated; and now, 

if only the policy of non-coercion could be main- 

tainetl, and war thus averted, time would do its 

j work in the North and the South, and final peace- 

■ able adjustment and reunion be secured. Some 

! time in March it was announced that the Presi- 

I dent had resolved to continue the policy of his 

predecessor, and even go a step further, and evac- 

jl uate Sumter and the other Federal forts and ar- 

! senals in the seceded Stales. His own party ac- 

!; quiesced; the whole country rejoiced. The policy 

I of non-cr)ercion had triumphed, and for once, sir, 

! in niylifi- 1 found myself in an immense majority. 

j No man then' pretended thai a Union founded in 

I consent could b<' cemented by force. Nay, more, 

; the President and the Secretary of Slate wentfur- 

I ther. Said Mr. Seward, in an official diplomatic 
! letter to Mr. Adams: 

I I " Forllicst fp:isoii<i li^[tlii' Presicteiit] would not In- ill- 
' posed Ki ri'ject a cardinal dojima ot" theirs, [the ceecHiiion 

l<H,] namely, tliai ilie Federal (Jiiveniiiieiil poald not reduce 
llie HccedliiK Static to olieilieiice by c(>iii|ik't'(, allliou:;!! h<f 
jl were disposi-d ln<|ue>liiiii tli.'U |ir'ipo«ilinii. ISiil ri/.i'.i/tv 
Pitiiilent wi'.tiii^ly acrritli it as true. Only nn imii. rial ot 
Je^iiolic (ioi-m<mriit could ml'j'.izatf Ikorouihly iii%ii]}e(tti 
and imurreitionary mi-mbrrt ujlhe Stair.'' 

Pardon me, sir, but I hi g to know whether th'S 
ccnviriion of the President and his Secretary, is 
not the philosophy of the persistent and most 
vigorous* fTorl.s made by tlii** Administration, ;\nr? 
fir.^t nf all ihroi'gh this -^ame Secretary, the mo- 
m<nt war broke out ami ever since till the late 



elections, to convert tlie United States into an 
imperial or despotic Government .' But Mr. Sew- 
ard adds, and I agree with liiin: / 

'•This FoiJcral Uepublican system of ours is, of all forms 
of govtTiiment, tlie very one wliicli is most unfitted for such 
a labor." 

This, sir, was on the lOih of April, and yet that 
very day the fleet was under sail for Ciiarh'ston. 
The policy of peace had been a|jaiidoned. Col- 
lisi(jn followed; the militia were ordered out: civil 
war lieijan. 

Now, sir, on the 14th of April, I hclieved that 
coercion would bring on war, and war di.sunion. 
More than that, I believed, what you ail in your 
hearts believe to-day, that the South could never 
be concfuered — never. And not that only, but I 
was satisfied — and you of the abolition party have 
now proved it to the world — that the secret but 
real jjurpose of the war was to abolish slavery 
in the Slates. In any event, I did not doubt that 
whatever might be the momentary impulses of 
those in power, and whatever pled<:es they might 
make in the midst of the fury for tlie Constitution, 
the Union, and the flag, yet the natural and inex- 
orable logic of revolutions would, sooner or later, 
drive them into that policy, and with it to its final 
but inevitable result, tlie change of our present 
democratical form of government into an imperial 
despotism. 

These were my convictions on the 14tli of April. 
Had I changed them on the loth, when I read 
the Pre.sident'd proclamation, and become con- 
vinced that I had been wrongall my life, and that 
all history was a faljle, and all human nature false 
in its development from the beginning of time, I 
would have changed my public conduct also. But 
my conviciiiMus ilid not change. 1 thought that if 
war was disunion on the 14th of April, it was 
equally disunion on the loth, and at all times. 
Believing this, I could not, as an honest man, a 
Union man and a patriot, lend an active support 
to the war; and I did not. I had rather my right 
arm w.ere plucked from it.s socket, and cast into 
eternal burnings, ih.an, with my convictions, to 
have thus defiled my soul with the guilt of moral 
perjury. Sir, I was not taught in that school 
which proclaims that " all is fair in politics." 1 
loathe, abhor, and detest the execrable nia.vim. 
1 siainp upon it. No Slate can endure a single 
generation whose public men practice it. Who- 
ever teaches it is a corrupter of yoyth. Wiiat 
we most want in these times, and at all times, is 
lionest and independent public men. That man 
who is dishonest in politics is not honest, at heart, 
• n any thing; and sometimes moral CO ward ice is dis- 
honesty. Do right; and trust to God, and Truth, 
and the People. Perish office, perish honors, 
iierish life itself; but do the thing that is right, and 
do it like a man. 1 did it. Certainly, sir, i could 
not doubt what he must suft'er who dare defy the 
opinions and the passions, not to say the mad- 
•loss, of twenty millions of people. Had I not 
r( ad history? bid I not know human nature? But 
I appealed to Timf., and right nobly hath the 
A VI nger answered me. 

I did not sunport the war; and to-day I bless 
God that n(;t tlie 9r ^11 .'f kt ;iiuch a.? one drop^f 
ltd I' ' ii» ' • Sir, 1 censure 



no brave man who rushed palrioiieally into this 
war; neither will I quarrel with any one, here or 
elsewhere, who gave to ii an honest sup|)ort. Had 
their convictions been mine, I, too, would doubt- 
less have done as they did. AVith my convic- 
tions 1 could not. 

But I was a Representative. War existed — by 
whose act no matter — not mine. The President, 
the Senate, the House, and the country, all said 
that there should be war — war for the Union; a 
union of consent and goodwill. Our soulliern 
l)iethren were to be whipped back into love and 
fellowship at the point of the bayonet. Oh, mon- 
strous delusion ! I can comprehend a war to com- 
pel a people to accept a master; to change a form 
of government; to give up territory; to abolish a 
domestic institution — in short, a war of conquest 
and subjugation; but a war for Union ! Was the 
Union thus made? Was it ever thus preserved.' 
Sir, history will record that after nearly six thou- 
sand years of folly and wickedness in every form 
and administration of government, theocratic, 
democratic, monarchic, oligarchic, despoiie, and 
mixed, it was reserved to American siat>sinan- 
ship in the nineteenth century of the Christian era 
to try the grand experiment on a scale the most 
costly and gigantic in its proportions, of creating 
love by force, and developing fraternal nflTiction 
by war; and history will record, too, on the same 
page, the utter, disastrous, and most bloody fail- 
ure of the experiment. 

But to return: the country was at war; and I 
belonged to that school of politics which«teaches 
that when we are at war, the Government — I do 
not mean the E.xecutive alone, but the Govern- 
ment — is entitled to demand and have, without 
resistance, such number of men, and such amount 
of money and supplies generally, as may be ne- 
cessary for the war, until an app<al can be had to 
the peo])le. Before that tribunal alone, in the first 
instance, must the question of the contiiniance of 
the war be tried. This was Mr. Calhoun's opin- 
ion, and he laid it down very broadly and ."^trnngly 
in a speech on the loan bill, in 1841. Speaking 
of supplies, he said: 

" I hold that there is a disiiiiction in this respect between 
a state of peace and war. In the laller, the riu'ht uf wilh- 
lioldiii!: supplies oui^iii ever lo Ix^ held .-ubordinate to the 
eneru'i'tic and suceesslul pro.^eeution of the war. I go fur- 
ther, and repanl llie waliliolding .>-nppljes, in'/A a rieif of 
foTcim; the countrii into a diikonorahlc jieacc, as nut only to 
be what it has been callid, moral ireas(ni, but very litllo 
short of actual treason iUself." 

Upon this principle, sir, h$ acted afterwards in 
the Mexican war. Speaking of that war in 1847, 
he said: 

'■ Every Senator knows that I wa-s opposed to the war; 
but none knows but myself the depth of ilint oppoaiUvii. 
With my conception of it.i chunicter nnd consequence*, Ic 
was impossible lor me lo vote for it.'' 

And again, in 1848: 

" Hut, after the war was declared, by authority of the Go» 
crnment, I acquiactd in trhat I could uot prrvent,an(l uKiek 
it u-as imfiotsibli: fur me to arrest ; and I then It-It It lo be mf 
duty to limit niy'ell'oris to gite stu/i itireclion lo the uar aa 
would, as far as po>sible, jtrevcnl the eiils nnd ilantrr$wUh 
xrhich it t/ireatened the eountry and its ittstUutions." 

Sir, I adopt all this as my own position and 
my defense; though, perhaps, in a civil war, I 
might fairly go further in opposition. I could not. 



:<i I10I.I 
,M.«,.le 



wilh my convictions, vote 
this wnr, nnd I would n 
volt; 115,'aiii'U thini. I nuiint llmt, will 
siiion, ilie Pitsidtnt nii^lil laki- all the 
nil llu- mnmy Ik' slionid di-mnnd, and llit 
him to n strict arrounialiilily l)tfi>re tli 
for iho nanlts'. Not bi'lifvlng tin;- stddii-rs rt- 
sponsibli! for tin- war, or its piir|)osi's, or itscon- 
aequences, 1 luivu ncvi-r withlnld my vote wlurc 
their spparnte inicri-sts were conrcrnrd. Hut 1 
have denonnced from the beginning the usiir|>n- 
tions nod the iiitVactionfi, one and all, of law and 
Constitution, liy the Presiilent and those under 
him; their repeated and poraislenl nrhiirary ar- 
rests, the suspension of httbean corpus, the viola- 
lion of iVeedom of the ninia, of the privat«! house, 



)te men and money for | tarnished. Your erf«l '>»''< 
<it, as n Ilrpresiiiiative, \' nuHeriihly , ns it (h «erved t< 



tional loon bubble fulled 
fail; but llo- bankers 
nd mereliant.s of I'hiladelpliia, New York, and 
Hosion lent you more than their entire bankine 
rnpital. And when that failed too, you f"reei| 
cr. (lit by declnrinu: your paper promiseM to pay 
a h )jal tend«r for all debts. Was money wnnn d ? 
You had nil the revi nues of the Unii.d Slates, 
diminislied indeed, but still in gold. The whole 
wealih of the country, to the last dollar, lay al your 
feet . Private individuals, municipal corporauons, 
the State governments, all in their frm/.v gave 
you miiney or means with reckless prodi^'jility. 
The great eastern cities lent you S150,000,IK>0. 
C'f.OL'ress voted, first, S--J.'JO,OUO,On<), and n-xt 
J,.")0(l,On(),0(lO more in Icians; and then, fir^i. 



of the press and of s| luand all the other mul- i: §o(),Ol)0,(Hl(), then ^10,000,000, next $90,(XJO,(KJO, 

liplied wronjrs and oiiira;;es upon pulilie liberty i and, in July last, §150,000,000 in Treasury iioi's; 



and private rit;!it, which have made this e 
one of the worst despoli.sms on earth for the past ' 
twenty months; and I will continue to rebuke 1 
and denounce them to the end; and tin- people, j 
thank God, have nl last heard and beed> d, anil .: 
rebuk'-d them, too. To the lecord and to lime I 
appeal n»ain fcir my justification. , 

And now, sir, I recur to the state of the Union i 
to-day. What is it? Sir, twenty months have ji 
elapsed, but" the rebellion is not crushed out; its 
military power has not been brnken; the insnr- 1 
gents have not dispersed. The Union is ni>t re- 1 
stored; nor the Consiitniion maintaineii; nor the ' 
lawsenfiirctd. Twenty, sixty, niiniy, three Imn- [ 
dred.six hundn-d dnys liive passed; a thousand 1 
millions been expended; and ihnc bundled thou- j 
sand lives lost or bodiis mangled; and to-duy tin- 1 
confedt-rate fla^ is still near the Potomac and the ' 
Ohio, and the eonfed-raie government stronger, 
many times, than at tin- beginning. Not a Slate 
has been restored, not any part of any State has 1 
voluntarily returned to the Union. And has any- ■ 
thing been wanting that Crnijrress, or the Stales, 
or the people in their most generous enthusiasm, ' 
their nnjst impassioned patriotism, could bestow.' \ 
Was it power? And did not the parly of ihe ex- 
eCHtive contrid the entir«! Federal tiovi rninent, 
every State government, every county , every city, ; 
lowii, and villagi- in the Norih and West? Was 
it paironnge? All belon^'ed to it. ' Was it inflii- 1 
ence? What more ? Diil not the school, the col- j 
lege, the church, the press, the secret orders, ; 
the munici|iality, the corporation, railroads, tele- j 
graphs, express companies, the volunturv nsso- | 
ciation, all, all yield it to the inmost? Was it 
unanimity? Nevi-r wasan Administration sosiij)- 
porled in England or America. Five men ami half ^ 
a score of newspapers made up the opposition. 
Was it enihusi!\sin? Tin; entliiisiasm was faiiui- 
icnl. There has been lioihing like it since ihe 
Crusades. Was it ccmfidence? Sir, tht faith of 1 
the people ex.^eeded thai of ih.' patriarch. They 
gave up Constitution, law, right, liberty, all at 
your demand for arbitrary power that the rebel- ^ 
lion might, as you promised, be crushed out in I 
three months and the Unii>n resl<ired. Was credit j 
needed ? You took control of a country, young, : 
vigorous, and inexhaustible in wijilth ant! ri - j 
sources, and of a Government olmosl free from ; 
public debt, and whose good faith had never been I 



1 the Secretary has issued also a paper " pom- 
a^e currency," in sums as low as five cents, lim- 
ited in amount only by his discretion. Nay, more: 
already since the 4th of July, 18G1, this House has 
appropriated §0,017,8G4,(M')0, almost every dollar 
without debati', and without a recorded vote. A 
thousand millions have been expended since ihe 
].">ih of April, IHfil; and a public debt or liability 
of §,1,500,000,000 already incurred. And to sup- 
port all this stupendous outlay and indebtedness, 
a system of ta.xation, direct and indirect, has been 
inaugurated, the most onerous and nnjusi ever 
imposed upon any but a conquered people. 

\loney and credit, ihen, you have had in prod- 
igal prolusion. And were men wanted? More 
than a million rushed to arms ! Seventy-five thou- 
sand first, (and the coninry stood aghast at ihe 
multiinde,) then eighty-three ihou.sand more were 
deinaiided; and three hundred and ten thou!«nnd 
re.-jpr,nded to the call. The President in xt asked 
for four hundred thousand, and Congress, in its 
generous confidence, gave him five hundred thou- 
sand; and, not to be outdone, he took six hundred 
and thirty-seven thousand. Half of ihes.- melted 
away in theirfirstcampnign; and the President de- 
manded three hundred thousand more for the war, 
and then drafted yet another three hundred ihtiu- 
sand for nine months. The fabled hosts ol Xerxi e 
have been oiitiuimbered. And yet victory siianKc- 
Iv follows the standards of the foe. From Great 
liethel to Vicksbui •:, the battle hfcs noi been lo ihe 
strong. Yet every disaster, except ihe last, has.been 
followed by a call for more troops, and every time 
so far they have been promptly furnished. From 
the beginning the war has beeii conducted like a 
politieal campaign, and it has been the folly of the 
party in power that they have assumed that num- 
bers'alone winild win the field in aconlest not with 
ballots but wilh musket and sword. I'ait numbers 
you Imve had almost without number — the largest, 
best appointed, best armed, fed, and clad host of 
bravemen.wellorgunizedand we!Mi?!fi-'!ioed,e'er 
marshaled. A Navy, too, not ' .liable 

perhaps, but the most nnmer' '. and 

the costliest in the world, ami liinosi 

without n navy al all. Thus urii iv.iny mil- 
lions of people, and every elenieiilof sirensih nod 
ftnce nl command — power, patronage, inlluencc, 
unanimity, enthusiasm, confidence, credit, money, 
n>en, an Army and a Navy the largest and lue 



6 



noblest eveH set in the field or afloat upon the sea; 
wiili the support, almost servile, of every State, 
cnnity.and municipality in the North and \V<st; 
with .1 Con;2^ress swift to do the bidding of the Ex- 
ecutive; without opposition anywhere at home, 
and with an arbitrary power which neither the 
Cziir i>f P».URsia nor the Emperor of Austria dare 
eX'Tcise; yet after nearly two years of more vig- 
orous prosecution of war than ever recorded in 
ir. history; after more skirmisln^s, combats and 
buttles than Alexander, Cjcsar, or the first Niipo- 
leon ever fought in any five years of their military 
career, you liave utterly, signally, disastrously — 
I will not say ignomii'iiously — failed to subdue 
tt II millions of " rebels," whom you had taught 
the people of the North and West not only to hate 
bill to despise. Rebels, did I say? Yes, your 
tathers were rebels, or your grandfathers. He 
who now before me on canvas looks down so sadly 
u|ion us, the false, degenerate, and imi)ecile guar- 
dians of the great Republic which he founded, 
was ;\ rebel. And yet we, cradled ourselves in 
rebellion, and who have fostered and fratornized 
with every insurrection in the nineteenth century 
everywhere throughout the ^lobe, would now, 
forsooth, make the word " rebel " a reproach. 
Rebels certainly they are; but all the persistent 
and stu[iendous efforts of the most gigantic war- 
lue of moilern times have, through your incom- 
petency and folly, availed nothing to crush them 
out, cut off though they jiave been by your block- 
ade from all the world, and dependent only upon 
their own courage and resources. And yet they 
were to be utterly conquered and subdued in six 
v.eeks, or three months! Sir, my judgment was 
made up and expressed from the first. I learned 
it from Chatham: "My lords, you cannot con- 
quer America." And you have not conquered 
the South. You never will. It is not in the na- 
t.ire of things possible; much less under your au- 
spices. I]ut money you have expended without 
limit, anil blood poured out like water. Defeat, 
debt, iaxati(in,sepulchres, these are your trophies. 
In vain the people gave you treasure and the sol- 
dier yielded up his life. " Fight, tax, em:uicipate, 
let these," said the gentleman frotn Maine, [Mr. 
Pike,] at the last session, "be the trinity of our 
salvaiioi>." Sir, they have become the trinity of 
your deep damnation. The war for the Uuion 
IS, in your hands, a most bloody and costly fail- 
ure.- The President confessed it on the 22d of 
September, .solemnly, ofFieially, and under the 
broad seal of the United States. And he has now 
repeated the confession. The priests and rabbis 
of al)oliii()n taught him that God would not pros- 
per such a cause. War for the Union was aban- 
doned; war for the negro openly begun, and with 
sirnn'^er battalions than befofe. With what suc- 
cess.' Let the dead at Fredericksburg and Vicks- 
burg answer. 

And now, sir, can this warconlinue.' Whence 
the money to carry it on? Where tin; men? Can 
you borrow? From whom? Can you tax more? 
Will the people bear it? Wait (ill you have col- 
lected what is iilready levied. Ilnvv nuiiiy mil- 
lions more of "legal tender" — to-day forty-seven 
per cent, below the par of guld — can you float? 
Will men enlist now at any price ? Ah, sir, it is 



easier to die at home. 1 beg pardon; hut I trust I 
am not" discouraging enlistments." If I am, then 
first arrest Lincoln, Stanton, and Halleck, and 
some of your other generals; and I will retract; 
yes, I will recant. But can y<)U draft again ? Ask 
New England — New York. Ask Massachusetts. 
Where are the nine hundred thousand ? Ask not 
Ohio — the Northwest. She thought you were in 
earnest, and gave you all, all — more than you 
demanded. 

" The wife wlios^e balie first smiled tliat day, 
I'lie fair, fond liride of ye^le^ eve. 
And asjed sire and matron gray. 
Saw the loved warriors liiu<t«'away, 
And deemed it .<in iti grieve." 

Sir, in blood she hasatoned for her credulity; 
and now there is mourning in every house, and 
distress and sadness in every heart. Shall she 
give you any more? 

But ought this war to continue? I answer, no — 
not a day, not an hour. What then? Shall we 
separate? Again 1 answer, no, no, no! What 
then? And now, sir, I come to the grandest and 
most solemn problem of statesmanship fr(»m the 
beginning of time; and to the God of Heaven, 
Illumincr of hearts and minds, I would humbly 
appeal for some measure, at least, of light and wis- 
dom and strength to explore and reveal the dark 
but possible future of this land. 

CAN THE UNION' OF THESE STATES BE RESTORED? 
HOW SHALL IT BE DO.VE? 

And why not? Is it historically impossible? 
Sir, the frequent civil wars and conflicts between 
the States of Greece did not prevent their cordial 
union to resist the Persian invasion; nor did even 
the thirty years Peloponnesian war, springing, in 
|iart, from the abduction of slaves, and embittered 
and disastrous as it was — let Thucidides speak — 
wholly destroy the fellowship of those States. 
The wise Romans ended the three years social war 
after many bloody battles, and much atrocity, by 
admitting the Slates of Italy to all the rights and 
privileges of Roman citizenshi|) — the very object 
to secure wiiich these States liad taken up arms. 
The border wars between Scotland and England, 
running through centuries, did not prevent the final 
union, in peace and by adjustment, of the two king- 
doms untler one monarch. Compromise did at last 
what ages of coercion and attempted conquest had 
failed to effect. England kept the crown, while 
Scotland save the king lo wear it; and the mem- 
ories of Wallace and the Bruce of Bannockburn, 
becamt; part ol" the glories of British history. I 
pass by the union of Ireland with England — a 
union of force, which God and just men abhor; 
and yet [irccisely " the Union as ii should be" of 
the abolitionists of America. Sir, the rivalries 
of the houses of York and Lancaster filled all 
England with cruelly and slaughter; yet compro- 
mise and intermarriage ended the strife at last, and 
the white ro.se and the red were blended in one. 
Who dreamed a month before the death of Crom- 
well that in two years the people of England, 
after twenty years of civil war and usurpation, 
would, with gre.ii uitaniinity, restore the hou.^e of 
Stewart in the person of its most wor'hie.ss prince, 
whose father but eleven years before they had 
beheaded? And who could have foretold in the 



beginniii* of 1812, that within ■omo three ycnin, 
Napolfiin WKiilil hu in rxi!"- iijion h clrdi-rt iMlnnJ, 
and till' MnirliDiis nstoiitl r AiiiK-d fnrci^n in- 
tervi-t)li<iii liiii it; l)ut it is n 8(i-aii!;i: liiatory- <)i° 
who tlioii fxporti-d to pp.' !« nc|)hi'Wor Nnniil<''»n, 
thiriy-fivc yars hiler, wilii tlic coiimMil of the [>.ii- 
pli', Hti|>nl)iiii till- B"iiiil)oii and n-i^fii Emperor of 
Frniicer Sir, miliiy Stuli-s mid pcopli-, onrr fn-p- 
nintf, iiavi" bct'oiiD! (iiiilt-d in llir course of ii'^i-k 
througli natural catiscN and wnhmil (•••iirjiii'Sl: Inii 
i n'mt-mijcr a siii^jle iiiHtaini' tmly in iiisiory, of 
Slatts or pt'opli- oiir<> united, and Hpcakiii'^ iht- 
eanielaiisua-;!', wlio havcliccn forci-d pcrniaiicnlly 
asuiidcr l>y <ivil strife or war, uitkss ihry \vi\r 
sepnrati-d l>y ilistniirc or vast natural Ijoundarirs. 
Tno secession of the Ten Trihcs is tiie i-xeepiion : 
liu'si- parted witlioul actual war; and iheir Mul>He- 
<|ueiii history is not ♦■nrcMiia^iii^ to seression 
but wlien MoscH, the a;reatest of all Btatesraeii, 
would secure a distinct nationality and govern- 
ment to the Hebrews, he left H<ypl and estab- 
lished his people in a distant country. In modern 
times, the Netherlands, three centuries ago, won 
their independence by the sword; bill France and 
the English Channel separated them from Spain. 
So did our Thirteen Colonie.s; but the Atl.iniic 
ocean divorced us from Kiijiland. So did Mex- 
ico, and oilier Spanish mlonies in America; but 
the same ocean divided tliein from Spain. Cuba 
and the ( 'aiiadas still adhere to the parent Govern- 
oieiit. And who now. North or South, ill Europi' 
or America, lookinv into history, shall presump- 
tuously say that because of civil war the reunion 
of these Stales is impossible .' War, indeed, while 
it lasts, i.s disunion, and, if il lasts loni; cnou|,'li, 
will be final, eternal separation first, and anarchy 
and despotism afterward. Hence I would ha.sien 
peace now, to-day, by every honornble appliance. 
Are there physical causes which render reunion 
impracticalile .' Non--. Where other causes do 
not control, rivers unite; but mountains, deserts, 
and great bodies of water — oceani dissociabiles — 
separate a people. Vast forests originally, and 
the lakes now, also divide us — not very widely 
or wiiolly — from the ('.uiadas, though wc speak 
llie same laiisrunge, and are similar in manners, 
laws, and instiiuiions. Our chief navi«rable rivers 
run from North to South. Most of our bays and 
arms of the sea lake the s:ime direction. So do 
our ranges of mountains. Natural causes all lend 
to Union, except as betwo-n the Pacific const 
and the country east of the Rocky mountains to 
the Atlantic. It is '• inaiiifist destiny." Union | 
is enifiire. Hence, hitherto we have continually I 
e.xtendiul our territory, and the Union with it, 
South and West. The Louisiana |)urchasc, Flor- ; 
ida, and Texas all atti at it. We passid di-sert 
and lorest. and scaled even the Rocky mountains, 
to extend the Union to the Pacific. Sir, there is no 
dntiiral boundary between the North and the 
South, aotl no line of latitude upon which to seji- 
anite; and if ever a lini- of lon«:itinle shall be es- 
tablished. It will beenst of the Mississippi valley. 
The Ailesrliaiiies are no loii<^er a barrier. Hi«ii- 
ways ail-end them everywhere, and the railroad i 
now climbs theirsummiis and spans their chasms, 
or penetrates their rockiest sides. The electric | 
lelegrapii follows, and, stretching its connecting | 



■' wires along the clouds, there mingles ill VOW 
^ l!'^htiiin!rH with the fires of heaven. 

Ijiit il'disuiiioiii.>«tH III the East will force n scp- 
i| ariuion of any of these States, and a bmuidary 
{> purely conventional, is nt last in be marked out, 
|l It inUHt and il will be either from Lak>- Kile upon 
I the shortest line to the Ohio river, or from iMnii 
'l hatian to iheCanndas. 

And, now, sir, is theri? any ditTerence of race 

iiere, so radical as to forbid reiininn > | do not 

refer Id the neirro race, styled now, in unctuoo* 

official [ihrase by the President, •• Americj»iiii of 

African descent." Certainly, sir, there are two 

white races in the United States, both from the 

same common stock, ami yet so distinct — one of 

them so peculiar — ilial ihey <|evelop dift'erent 

[ forms ofcivilization,and might belong, almost, to 

I different ty|)es of mankind. Hut the boiindnry of 

I these two races is not at all marketl by the linr 

whiclidividestheslaveholdiiigfrom thenon slav*- 

'; holding States. If race is to be the geographical 

I limit of di.-mnion, then Mason and Dixon's caa 

I never be the line. 

M Next, sir, do not the causes which, in the begin- 
ning, impelled to Union mill exist in their utmost 
1' force and extj^it? What were they.' 

First, the common descent — and therefore co»i- 
sangiiiiiity — of the great mass of the people from 
till! Anglo-Saxon stock. Had the Canadas beea 
settled grisrinally by the English, they would 
doubtless have followed the fortunes of the thir- 
teen colonies. Next, a common language, oneof 
the strongest of the ligaments which bind a people 
Had wc been contiguous to Great Britain, either 
the ciiiises which led to a separation would hare 
never existed, or else been speedily removed; or, 
afterwards, we would long since have been reuni- 
ted asequalsand with all the rightsof Englishmen. 
A nd along with these were similar, at least not ea- 
seiitially dissimilar, manners, habits, laws, reh- 
irion, and institutions of all kinds, except one 
; The common di-fense was another powerful i»- 
I cenlive, and is named in the Constitution as one 
amonic tlie objects of the '* more perfect Union" 
of 17si7. Stronger yet than all these, perhaps, 
but made upofall of them, wasacommon interest. 
Variety of climate and soil, and tlierefore of pro- 
duction, implyingalsoextent of country, isnotaa 
' element of separation, but, added to contiguity, 
becomes a part of the ligament of interest, and ia 
I one of its toughest strands. Variety of protluction 
! is the parent of the earliest commerce and trade; 
I and these, in theirfiilldevelopment, are, as between 
] foreiirn nations, hostages for peacj-; and betweea 
I Slates and people united, tliey are the firmeat 
! bonds of Union. Hut, after all, the Htronjest of 
j the many original impelling causes to the Union, 
I was the securin? of domestic tranquillity. The 
I statesmen of 17H7 well knew that between thirt<-«a 
I independent but contiguous Stales without • 
natiirul boundary, and with nothing to separate 
them except the machinery of similar govern- 
meniK, there must lie a perpetual, in fact an '• ir- 
! repressible conrticl" of jurisdiction and interest, 
I which, there being no other ci>mmon arbiter, could 
I only be terminated by the conflict of the sword. 
' And the staiesmeii of It^ti'i ought to know that two 
i or more confederate governments, made up af 



8 



similHr States, having no natural boundary either, 
and separated only by difTerent governments, can- 
not endure long together in peace, unless one or 
B»ore of iheni be either too pusillanimous for 
rirairy, or top insignificant to provoke it, or too 
weak to resist aggression. 

These, sir, along with the establishment of jus- 
tice, and the securing of the general welfare, and 
of the blessings of liberty to themselves and their 
posterity, made up the causes and motives which 
impelled our fathers to the Union at first. 

And now, sir, what one of them is wanting? 
What one diminished .' On the contrary, many 
of them are stronger to-day than in the beginning. 
Migration and intermarriage have strengthened 
the ties of consanguinity. Commerce, trade, and 
production have immensely multiplied. Cotton, 
almost unknown here in ]7d7, is now the chief 
product and export of the country. It has set in 
motion tliree fourths of the spindles of New Eng- 
land , and given employment, directly or remotely, 
lo full half the shipping, trade, and commerce of 
the United States. More than that: cotton has 
kept the peace between England and America for 
thirty years; and had the people of the North been 
as wise and practical as the statesmen of Great 
Britain, it would have maintained Union and peace 
here. IJut we are being taught in our first cen- 
tury and at our own cost, the lessons which Eng- 
land learned through the long and bloojy expe- 
rience of eight liundred years. We shall be wiser 
next time. Let not cotton be king, but peace- 
maker, and inherit the blessing. 

A common interest, then, still remains to us. 
And union for the common defense, at tin; end of 
this war, t<ixed, indebted, impoverislied, exhaust- 
ed, as both sections must be, and with foreign fleets 
and armies around us, will be filty-fbid more es- 
Hcntial than ever before. And finally, sir, without 
union, our domestic tranquillity must forever re- 
main unsettled If it cannot be maintained within 
the Union, how then outside of it, without an 
exodus or colonization of the people of one section 
or the other to a distant country ? Sir, i repeat 
that two governments so interlinked and bound 
together every way by physical and social liga- 
iiient.s, cannot exist in peace without a common 
arbiter. Will iiealies bind us .' What better treaty 
than the Con.siitniion ? What more solemn, more 
durabl.? Sh.ill we settle our disputes, then, by 
irbitration and compromise.' Sir, let us arbitrate 
Mud compromise now, inside of the Union. Cer- 
luinly it will be quite as easy. 

And now, sir, to all these original causes and 
motives which imi>ei|.(l to union at first, must be 
added certain ariifieial ligaments, which eighty 
years of association under a common Govern- 
ment have most fully developed. Chief among 
these are canals, steam navisaiion, railroads, ex- 
pn-ss companies, the post ot1i( c, the miwspaper 
press, and I hat terrible agent of good and evil mixed 
— " spirit of health, and yet goblin damned"— if 
free, the gentlest minister of iruth and liberty; 
when enslaved, the supplest instrument of false- 
hood and tyranny — ihe magnetic lelet;raph. All 
these liavc mnliiplied the speed or the quantity 
of trade, travel, communication, migration, and 
intorcoiirscofall kinds between the dill'erent Stales 



and sections; and thas, so long as a healthy con- 
dition of the body-politic continued, they became 
po^verful cementing agencies of union. The nu- 
merous voluntary associations, artistic, literary, 
charitable, social, and scientific, until corrupted 
and maile fanatical; the various ecclesiastical or- 
ganizations, until they divided; and the political 
parties, so long as they remained all national and 
not sectional, were also among the strong ties which 
bound us together. Andyetall of these, perverted 
and abused for some years iA the hands of bad or 
fanatical men, became still more powerful instru- 
mentalities in the fatal work of disunion; just as 
the veins and arteries of the human body, de- 
signed to convey the vitalizing fluid through every 
part of it, will carry also, and with increased ra- 
pidity it may be, the subtle poison which takes life 
away. Nor is this all. It was through their agen- 
cy that the imprisoned winds of civil war were all 
let loose at first with such sudden and appalling 
fury; and, kept in motion by political power, they 
have ministered to that fury ever since. But, 
potent alike for good and evil, they may yet, un- 
der the control of the people, and in the hands of 
wise, good, and patriotic men, be made the mo-st 
eftective agencies, under Providence, in the re- 
union of these States. 

Other ties also, less material in their nature, but 
hardly less persuasive in their influence, have 
grown U|i under the Union. Long association, 
a common history, national reputation, treaties 
and diplomatic intercourse abroad, admission of 
new States, a common jurisprudence, great men 
whose names and fame are the patrimony of the 
whole country, patriotic music and songs, common 
battle-fields, and glory won under the same flair. 
These make up the poetry of Union; and yei,a8 in 
the marriage relation, and the family with similar 
influences, they are stronger than liooks of ste<l. 
He was a wise statesman, though he may never 
have held an oflice, who said, " Let me write liie 
songs of a people, and I care not who makes their 
laws." Whv is the Marseillaise prohibited in 
P'rance.' Sir, Hail Columbia and the Star Spansied 
Banner — Pe niisv I van ia gave us one, and Maryland 
the other — have done more for the Union than all 
the legislation and all the debates in this Capitol for 
forty years; and they will do more yet again than 
all your armies, though you call out another mil- 
lion of men into the field. Sir, I would add "Yan- 
kee Doodle;" but first let me be assured that Yan- 
kee Doodle loves the Union more than he hates 
the slaveholder.* 

And now, sir, 1 propose to briefly consider the 
causes which leil to disunion and the present civil 
war; and to inquire whether they are eimial and 
ineradicable in their nature, and at the same limn 
jinwerful enough lo overcome all the causes and 
considerations which impel to i-eunion. 

Having two years ago discussed fully and elab- 
orately the more abstruse and remote causes 
whence civil comnmiions in all Governments, and 
those also which are peculiar to our coinph'X and 
Federal system, such as the consolidating tenden- 
cies of the General Government, because of exee- 



* In trinh, the sniig w.is wrillrii in (lcri;<inn, by a Brllisli 
otliccr, and not by an Atneiican. 



utive power and pntronn^.nnd of the tnriflT, and 

taxation anil disl)iirM>>nu-n(<;i-nornlly,nlliihjus(nntl 
l)urdeiisonic to iho West iqnally wiili tin: South, 
I pass llii'iii l<y now. 

What, then, 1 a.sk, i.i tlu! immrdiatt!, direct 
cause of disunion mid this civil war? Slavory, 
it isanswcn d. Sir, that is ihi- pliiK)8opliy of ihf 
rustic in the phiy — " that n {jrcal cause of tlir 
night, is h»<U t)f thcsun." Ccrininly slavery was 
in one sense — very (d)S( iire indeed — tlie cause of 
the war. Had tlure been no .slavery here, tiiis 
particular war about slavery would never liave 
been waited. In a like sense, the Holy Sepuleher 
was the cause of the war of the Crusades; and had 
Troy or Carih.i^e never existed, there never would 
have been Trojati or Carthaginian war, and no 
such personages as Hector and Hannibal; and no 
Iliad or ..l-^niid would ever have been written. 
Rut far better s;\y that the ne^ro is the cause of 
tiie war; for had there been no ne^ro here, there 
woulil be no war ju.st now. What then.' Exter- 
minate him r Wlio demands it? Colonize him ? 
How? Where? When? .At whose cost ? .Sir, 
let us have an end of this folly. 

But slavery is the cause ol' the war. Why? 
Because the South obstinately and wickedly re- 
fused to restrict or abolish it at the demand of the 
|>hilosophnrs or fanatics ami dema'j;oi;ue3 of the 
North and West. Then, sir, it was ubidilion, 
the purpose toal)olish or interfere with and hem 
in slavery, which caused disunion and war. Sla- 
very is only the gubjeel, but abolition the cause, 
of this eivil war. ft was the per.sislent and de- 
termined n^itatioai in the free Slates of the ques- 
tion of abolishing slavery in the South, because 
of the alleged "irrepressible conflict" bctw'een 
tbr forms of labor in the two s>-clions, or in (he 
fiise and mischievous rant of ihi; ilay, between 
freedom and slavery, that forced u collisi<»n of 
arms at last. Sir, that conflict was not confined 
to the Territories. It was expiessly proclaimed 
by its apostlc.a.as between the Statesalso, against 
the in.stitution of ilomesiic slavery cv<-ry where. 
But, assuminir the platforms of the Ilepublican 
party as the standard, and siatini; the case most 
strongly in favor of tiiat party, it was the refusal 
of tht; South to consent that slavery should be ex- 
cluded from the Terriiori< s that led to the con- 
tinued asrilation, North and South, of that ques- 
tion, and finally to disunion and civil war. Sir, 
I will not be answered now by the old clamcM- 
about "the aggressions of the slave power." 
That miserable specter, that unreal mockery, has 
been exorcised and expelled by debt and taxation 
and blood. If that power did govern this coun- 
try for the sixty years precedin^j this terrible rev- 
olution, then the sooner this Administniiion and 
Government return to the principles and policy of 
southeriistalesmanship, the butter for the conn iry; 
and that, sir, is already, orsoon will be, the judi;- 
ment of the people. But I deny that it was tli- 
" slave power" that governed for so many yeai . 
and so wisely and well. It was the Democrat, 
party, :ind its principles and policy, molded aiul 
eoiitrolled, indeed, largely by southern statesmen. 
Neiilnr will I be stopped by that oiher cry of 
mingled fanaticism and hypocrisy, about the sin 
and barbarism of African slavery. .Sir, I see 



more of bnrbarism and ain, a thouannd timea, in 

the continuance of this war, the disa<«luiion of 
the Union, the breakin;; up of ihis (Jovi rnmeiit, 
and the enslavement of the- while race by dibt and 
taxes and arbitrary power. Tlie day of fanat- 
ics and so|diisl.« ami enthusiasls, thank God, is 
gone at last; and thoui;li the iif^c of chivalry may 
not, the a'.;e of practical statesmanship is about to 
return. Sir, I accept lh<; lanf;iin£;e and intent of 
the i|yliana resolution to the full — "that in con- 
siderine terms of settlement we will look only to 
the W)|irure, peace, and safety of the while race, 
witho|||refeience to theeflecl that settlement may 
have tipon the condition of the African." And 
when we have done this, my word for it, the 
safety, peace, and wclfanj of the African will 
have been best secured. Sir, tlierc is fifi v-f'ld less 
of anti-slavery si-ntimeiit to-day in the VVest than 
there was two yearsn^o; and if this war be con- 
linmd, there will be still less a year hence. The 
people there b«jjin, at hrst, to comprehend that do- 
mestic slavery in the South is a question, not of 
morals, or rclii^ion, or humanity, but a form ol 
labor, perfectly etmipatibk- with the disrnity of 
free white labor in the same community, and with 
national vigor, power, and prosperity, ond espe- 
cially with mililary strength. They have learned, 
or be-rin to harn, that the evils of the system af- 
fect the mn.sler alone, or the community and Slate 
in which it exists; and that wc of the free Statca 
partake of all the material benefits of the insti- 
tution, unmixed with any part of its mischiefs. 
They beli'.ve also in the .subordination of the ii«- 
j^ro race to the white wlnre they both exist to- 
gether, and thai the condition of subordination, 
as established in the South, is far better every 
way for tin- iie;;ro than the hard servitiideof pov- 
erty, deijradtition, and crime to which lie is sub* 
jected in the free Slates. All this, sir, may be 
" pro-slavtryism," if there be such a word. Per- 
haps it is; but the people i»f the West b.gin now 
to think it Wisdom and good sense. We will nol 
eslablish slavery in our own midst; neither will 
we abolish or interfere with it outside of our own 
limits. 

Sir, an rtnti-slavery paper in New York, (the 
Tribune,) the most influential, and, therefore, 
most dangerous of all of that class— it would 
exhibit more of dignity, and command more 
of influence, if it were always to discuss public 
cpiistions and public men wiili a decent resiieci — 
laying oside iniw the epithets of "secessionist" 
and " traiii>r," has returned to itsancient political 
nomenclature, and calls certain members of thia 
House " |iro-slavery.'*" Well, sir, in the old senw 
of the lerm as applied to ihe Democratic party, I 
will not object. 1 said years ago, and it is u fitting 
lime now lo repeat it: 

" II 111 love iiiy rnuiilo'; W cherish Ihe fiiion : to rcvri* 
Ihe (.'iiii!<iltuiioii ; ir lo .ilihur the ininliiiix .incl liaie the tr««- 
-..:, ui,:. Ii u.MiM Ii:| 1.;,., ■:irriI.-i....-li.oi.! ..-,il,. t .-Uljcr, 



r . I!.;- .: I. ' il t!.' ■ It 1 : 'I I. • ;■•" ■ wry 

IiiTVe. liliiT. vein, hour. Ii'tiitoii. jm ■ 'rorti 

the iniuiiont h.ilr lit' the henil to lli th» 
loot, I ;iiii all ovcrniiil allo^elJK.'f a |>:' 

And now, sir, I come lo the gn:aland coiurolling 



10 



question within which the whole issue of union or 
disunion is bnund up: is there "an irrepressible 
conflict" between the tjlHveluildins; and non-slave- 
holdiii'^ Stales? Must " the cotton and rice fields 
of South Carolina and the sujjnr planttuions of 
Louisiana," in the language of Mr. Seward, " be 
ultimately tilled by free labor, ami Cliarlesion and 
New Orleans become marts for Ifsi'i'Tiate nuT- 
rhandise alone, or else the rye fiilds and wheat 
fields of Massachusetts and New York agnin be 
surrendered by their farmers to slave culture and ! 
the production of slaves, and Boston aujii New | 
York become once more markets for tra^jjl in the | 
bodies and souls of men?" tf so, then diere is 
anendof all union and forever. You cannotabol- i 
ish slavery by the sword; still less by proclania- | 
tions, thou^it the President w(.'re to " proclaim" i 
every month. Of what possible avail was his 
proclamatiini of September? Did the South sub- 
mit? Was she even alarmed? And yet he has 
now fulmined another " bull against the comet" — 
brutumfulinen — and, ihreatenino; servile insurrec- 
tion with all its hoirors. has yet coolly appealed 
to the judgment of mankind, and invoked the bless- 
ing of the God of peace and love I But declaring 
it a military necessity, an essential measure of 
war to subdue the rebels, yet, with admirable wis- 
dom, he expressly exempts from its operation the 
only States and parts of States in the South where 
he lias the military power to execute it. 

Neither, sir, can you abolish slavery by argu- 
ment. As well aitem|)l to abolish marriage or the 
relation of paternity. The Soutli is resolved to 
maintain it at every hazard and i)y every sacrifice; 
and if" this Union cannot endure part slave and 
part free," then it isalreaily and finally dissolved. 
Talk not to me of" West Virginia." Tell me not 
of Missouri, trampled under the feet of your sol- 
diery. As well talk to me of Ireland. Sir, the 
destiny of those States must abide the ilsue of the 
war. But Kentucky you may find tougher. And 
Maryland — * 

" E'en in hera.'^lins live their wonied llres." 

Nor will Delaware be found wanting in the day : 
of trial. I 

But I iU'uy the doctrine. It is full of disunion 
and civil war. It is disunion itsilf. Whoever 
first taught it ought to be dealt with as not only 
hostile to the Union, but an enemy of the human 
race. Sir, tiie fundamental idea of the Constitu- 
tion is the perfect and eternal compatibility of a 
union of States " part slave and part free;" else 
the Constitution never would have been framed, 
nor the Union fninded; and seventy years ofsuc- 
cessful exjieriment have approved the wisdom of 
the plan. In my deliberate judgment, a confed- 
eracy made up of slaveholding" and non-slave- 
holding Smtes is, in the nature of things, the 
Btrongesl of all popular governmeiit.s. African 
slavery lias bcen,(and is, eminently conservative. 
It makes the absolute [toliiical eipialiiy of the 
wiiite race (ivcrywhere |>iaeti(able. It dispenses 
with the English orderof nobility, and leavesevery 
white man. North and South, owning slaves or 
owning none, the equal of every other white man. 
It has reconciled universal suflVage throughout 
the free States with the stability of government. 



1 speak not now of its material benefits to the 
North and West, which are manj'- and more ob- 
vious. But the Siiulh, too, has profiled many 
waysby aunion witii the non-slaveholdiiig States. 
Enterprise, industry, self-reliance, perseverance, 
and the other hardy virtues of a people living in a 
higher latitude and without hereditary servants, 
she has k'arned or received from the North. Sir, 
it is easy, I know, to denounce all this, and to 
revile him who utters it. Be it so. The English 
is, of all languages, the most copious in words of 
bitterness and reproach. "Pour on: I will en- 
dure." 

Then, sir, there is not an " irrepressible con- 
flict" between slave labor and free labor. There 
is no conflict at all. Both exisl*togt.tlier in perfect 
harmony in the South. The master and the slave, 
the white laborer and the lilack, work too;etlier in 
the same field or the .same shoj), and wiihont the. 
si igli test sense of degradation. Tiiey are not etpials, 
either socially or politically. And why not, then, 
cannot Ohio, havirij; only free labor, live in har- 
moiiy with Kentucky which has both slave and 
free ? Above all, why cannot Massachusetts allow 
the same righr of choice to South Caridina, sep- 
arated as they are a thousand miles, by other States 
who would keeji the peace and live in good will ? 
Why this civil war? Whence disunion? Not 
from slavery — not because the South diooses to 
have two kinds of labor instead of one; but from 
sec/jono/ism, always and everywhere a disiiitrgra- 
tingprinciple. Sectionaljealousy and hate — these, 
sir, are the only elementsof conflict between these 
Slates, and though powerful, they are yet not at 
all irrepressible. They exist between' families, 
cortimunities, towns, cities, counties, and States: 
and if not repressed would dissolve all society 
and government. They exist also between other 
sections than the North and South. Sectionalism 
East, many years ago, saw the South and West 
united by the ties of geographical position, migra- 
tion, intermarriage, and interest, and thus strong 
enough to control the power and policy of the 
Union. It found us divided only by diflTerent forms 
of labor; and, with consummate but most guilty 
sagacity, it seized upon the question of slavery as 
the surest and most powerful instrumentality by 
which to separate the West from the South, and 
bind her wholly to the North. Eiicourag.d every 
way from abroad by those who were Jealous of 
our prosperity and greatness, and who" knew the 
secret of our strength, it proclaimed the " irn'pres- 
sible conflict" between slave labor and fi-ee labor. 
It taught the people of the North to forset both 
their duty and their interests; and aided by ihe 
artificiiil ligamentsand influence which money and 
enterprise had created between the sea-board and 
the Northwest, it persuaded the peo|deoflhnt sec- 
lion, also, to yielci up every lie which binds thrm 
to the great valley of the Mississippi, and to join 
their political forlunese.tpecially, wlmlly, with tin 
East. It resisted the fugitive slave law, iiiul de- 
manded the exclusion ofslavery from all the Terri- 
tories and from this District, and clamored against 
the admission of any more slave Slates into the 
Union, llorjrnnizedasectionalanti-.slavery party, 
and thus drew to its aid as well political umliitiioi 
and interest as fanaticism; and after twenty-five 



11 



years of incessant and vehen^nl agitation, it ob-j 
taiiicd pnaspsHJon finally, iiiul upon tlial issue, ofil 
the Ft;iJ(-rnl Goveiiimciil nnd nf every StHte pov- ' 
einmeiit Noiih Hiid Wtsi. And to-day, we mo || 
in till' midst ortjje i^realesi, most crui'l, n»o.sid(-|| 
sfniciivc civil war ever wa^ed. lUu two years, 
sir, of blood and debt and taxation and iiicipi'iit 
roninitrcial ruin are teacliiii{j the peojije of the | 
West, and I trust of tlie North also, the folly and ,i 
madness of tins crusade against African slavery, | 
and the wisdom and necessity of a unicni of the i 
Slates, as our fathers made it, "part slave and I 
part free." |] 

What, then, sir, with so many causes impelling i 
to reuniini, keeps us apart to-day ? Hale, passion, j 
anlai^onism, reven<je,all heated si.'Ven times hotter 
by war. ISir, these, while they last, are tin- most 
powerful of all motives with a people, and with 
the individual nnin; but foitunately they are llie 
least duratde. They iiold a divided sway in the 
same bosoms with the nobler qualities of love, 
justice, reason, placability; and, except when at 
their height, are weaker than the sense of interest, 
and always, in States at least, give way to it at;, 
last. No statesman who yield.s himself up to them ' 
can govern wisely or well; and no Stale whosi; , 
policy is controlled by them can either prosoeror 
endure. But war is both their olVsprinjr and their 
aliment, and while it lasts, all otlier motives are ,\ 
subordinate. The virtues of peace cannot flour- i 
ish, cannot even find development in the midst of,' 
figlitin;^; and this civil war keeps in motion the 
centrifugal forces of the Union, and gives to them j 
increased strength and activity every day. But 
such, and so many and [lowerful, in my judgment, 
are the cementing or centrijietal agencies impelling ,, 
us together that nothing but perpetual war and ]'; 
strife can keeps us always divided. l| 

Sir, 1 do not under-eslimale the power of the | 
prejudices of section, or, what is much stronger, [i 
of race. Prejudice is colder, and, therefore, more M 
durable than the passions of hale and revenge, or ii 
the spirit of antagonism.. But, as I have already j 
saitl, iis boundary in the United States is not Ma- j 
son and Dixon's line. The long standing mu-l 
tual jealousies of New England and the South do | 
not primarily grow out of slavery. They are , 
deip.r, and will always be the chief obstacle in [ 
ihe way of full and absolute reunion. 'I'hey are j 
founded in difference of manners, habits, and j 
social life, and difl'erent notions about politics, i 
morals, and religion. Sir, after all, this whole 
war is not so much one of sections — least of all 
belwieii the sluveholdiiig and non-slaveholding 
sections — as of races, repre.seiiting not dilferejice , 
in blood, but mind and its development, and dil'- \ 
feri'iil types of civilization. It is the old conflict 
of the Cavalier and the Roundhead, the Liiieralist 
and the Puritan; or rather it is a conflict upon new \ 
iss(i.s, of the ideas and eleimnls njiresented by , 
Ihiise names. It is a war of the Yankee and the 
Southron. Said a FJxston wriiir the otiier day, ' 
eulogizing a New Kngland otlict-r who fell at., 
Friclifricksburg: "This is .Massachusetts's war; 
Massachusetts wid South Carolina made it." But i 
in the beginnij^, the Roundheud outwitted the,) 
Cavalier, and by a skillful r.se of slavery and the j 
negro united all New England first, and after- • 



ward the entire North and West, und finally aeiit 
out to battle ii!;nin.st him Celt und Saxon, Ger- 
man unit Knickerbocker, Catholic and Episco- 
palian, ami < yen a part of iiis own liKUSi-linhl and 
of tin: descendants «if his own stock. Said Mr. 
Jeflerson, whi-n New Enghmd threatened tteces- 
sion some sixty years n-n,; " No, let us keep the 
Yankics to rpiurn I with." Ah, sir, he forg«»t 
that e|uarreling is always a hii/.urdous experi- 
mi^ni; and after some lime, the eonntrymen of 
Adams proved ihemselves too sharp at that work 
for till! countrymen of JefTerson. B>a every day 
the contest now tends again to its naiuial and ori- 
ginal eliMnents. in many parts of ihe Noriliwst — 
I might add of I'.nnsylvnnia, New JorKey, and 
New York city — liie prtjudice against tlie " Yan- 
kee" has always been almost s.s hitler as in the 
South. Suppressed fur a liith- while by the anti- 
slavery sentiment and the war, it threatens now 
to break forth in one of those great but unfortu- 
nate popular uprisings, in the midst of wlncii rea- 
son and justice are for thi; time iiilerly silenced, 
i speak advisidly; and let New Eiii:iand lieed, 
else she, and the whole Ea.st, too, in/llieir strug- 
gle for power, may learn yet from the West tlie 
same lesson which civil war taught to Kom<-, thai 
evulgaln imperii arcano, jwshc priitciptin alibi, qitam 
Roinmfieri. The peopleof the Westdemand peace, 
and they bej^iii to more than suspect that New 
England is in the way. The storm rag. s; and 
they believe that she, not slavery, is the cause. 
The ship is sore tried; and passeng'-r.-j and crew 
are now almost ready to propitiate the waves by 
throwing the ill-omened prophet overl<oard. In 
plain English — not very classic, but most eX|>ro38- 
ive — they threaten to "set New England out in 
the cold." 

And now, sir, I, wlio have not a drop of New 
England blood in my veins, but was born in Ohio, 
and am wholly ofsouthern ancestry — withaslighl 
cross of Pennsylvania Scotch-Irish — would speak 
a word to the men of the West and the S<tuik, in 
behalf of New England. Sir, some years a|p, 
in till- midst of high sectional controversies, and 
speaking as a western man, I said sonte things 
harsh of the North, wliicli now, in a more catholic 
spirit as a United States man, and for the sake of 
reunion, I would recall. My prejudices, indeed, 
upon this suliject are as strong as any man's; but 
in this, the diiy of great national liumiliaiion and 
calamity, let the void- of prejudice be husli*d. 

Sir, tliey who would exclude New England in 
any reconstruction of tlie Union, assume that ail 
New Eiiglttndersare"Yankees"aiidPurilan9;aijd 
tlwit the Puritan or pragmatical element, or tyjw 
of civilization, has always lield undis|Mited sway. 
Well,sir,Y«iikees,certainly,thevare III on. sense; 
and so to Old England we are all Yankees, N.irlh 
and South; and to the South just now, or a little 
wliih: ago, we of the middle and western States, 
also, are, or were, Yankees, too. Hut then is really 
a viry largi», and most liberal and conser v. iiive non- 
Puritan element in the population of New Eng- 
land, which, for many years, struggled for the 
mastery, and sometimes held it. itdividtd Maine, 
New li.im|>shire,and Connecticut, and one.- con- 
trolled Ilhode island wholly. k held the sway 
during the lie volution, und at the period when the 



12 



Constitution was founded, and for some years 
afterward. Mr. Callioun said very justly, in 1847, 
tlitU to ilic wisdom and enlargi^d patriotisiTi of 
Shennnii and Ell.'fworth on the slavery question 
we were iii(l<btt-d for this admirable Government; 
and thr.i, along with Paterson, of New Jersey, 
" their names ought to beeneraven on brass, and 
live forever." And Mr. Webster, in 1830, in one 
of those grand historic^vord-paintin^s, in which 
he was so great a master, said of Massachusetts 
and Soutli Carolina: •' Hand in hand they stood 
around iho Administration of Washington, and 
felt his own great arm lean on them for support." j 
Indeed, sir, it was not till some thirty years ago | 
that the narrow, presumptuous, intermeddling,] 
and fanatical spirit of the old Puritan element be- 
gan to reappear in a form very much more aggres- 
sive and destructive than nt first, and threatened 
to obtain absolute mastery in church, and school, 
and Slate. A little earlier it had struggled hard, 
but the conservatives proved too strong for it; and 
so long as the great statesmen and jurists of the 
Whig and Democratic parties survived, it made 
small prog(ess, though John Q,uincy Adams gave 
to it the strength of his great name. But after 
their death it broke in as a flood, and sweptaway 
the last vestige of the ancient, liberal, and toler- 
ating conservatism. Then every form qnd devel- 
opment of fanaticism sprang up in rank and most 
luxuriant growth, till abolitionism, the chief fungus 
ofall, overspread the whole of New England fii'st, 
and tli.n the middle States, and finally every State 
in the Northwest. 

Certainly, sir, the more liberal or non-Puritan 
element was mainly, though not altogether, from 
the old Puritan stock, or largi-ly crossed with it. 
iJut even within the first ten years after the land- 
ing of the Pilgrims, a more enlarged ami tolerating 
eivilizati(ui was introduced. Roger Williams, 
not of the Mayflower, though a Puritan himself, 
and ihoroughiy imbued with all its peculiarities 
of caul and creed ami form of worship, seems yet 
u^have had naturally a more liberal spirit; and, 
first perhaps of all men, some three or more years 
before the Ark and the Dove touched the shores 
of the St. Mary's, in Maryland, taught the sub- 
lime doctrine of freedom of opinion and practice 
in religion. Threatened first with banishment to 
EnglamI, so as to " remove as f\r as possible the 
infection of his principles;" and afterwards ac- 
tuallf banished beyond the jurisdiction of Mas- 
sac.husiiis, because, in the language of the sen- 
tence of the General Court, "he broached and 
divulged divers new and strange doctrines against 
the authority of magistrates" over the religious 
opinion.s of men, thereby disturbing the peace of 
the cohuiy, he lueame the founder of Rhode Isl- 
and, and, indeed, of a large part of New England 
society. And, whether from his leaching and 
example, and in the persons of his ilescendants 
ami those of his associnles, or from oilier causes 
and another stork, there has always been a large 
infusion throughout New England of what may 
be called the Rns;tr WUliams rlrment, as distin- 
guished from the extreme Puritan or .Uni^y/oirrr 
and Plijiiuintli Rock type of the New Engiander; 
and its influence, till late years, has always been I 
powerful. I 



The SPEAKEft. The gentleman's hour has 

' Mr. VALLANDIGHAM. I ask for a short 
lime lon^i-r. 

Mr. POTTER. I hope iherejivill be no objec- 
tion from this siile of the House. 

The SPEAKER. If there be no objection the 
gentleman will be allowed further time. 

There was no objection; and it was ordered 
accordingly. 

Mr. VALLANDIGHAM. Sir, I would not 
deny or disparage the austere virtues of the old 
Puritans of England or America. But I do believe 
that, in the very nature of things, no community 
could exist long in peace, and no Government 
endure long alone, or become great, where thai 
element in its earliest or its more recent form 
holds supreme control. And it is my solemn con- 
viction that there can be no jiossible or durable 
reunion of these Slates until it shall have been 
again subordinated to other and more liberal and 
con-servative elements, ajid, above all, until its 
worst and most mischievous development, aboli- 
tionism, has been utterly extinguished. Sir, the 
peace of the Union and of this continent demands 
it. Rut, fortunately, those very elements exist 
al)undantly in New England herself; and to h<^r I 
I look with confidenci! to secure to them the mas- 
I lery within her limits. In fact, sir, the true voice 
; of New England has for some years past been but 
! I'arely heard hire or elsewhere in public affairs. 
Men now control her politics and are in high 
■ places, Stale and Federal, who, twenty years ago, 
I could not iiave been chosen selectmen in oh! 
Massachusetts. Rut let her remember at hist her 
ancient renown; let her turn from vain-glorious 
admiration of the stone monuments of her heroes 
and patriots ofafoiiner age, to generous emulation 
of the noble and manly virtues which they were 
ilesisned to commeinorate. Let us hear less from 
her of the Pilgrim Fathers and the Mayflower and 
of Plymouth Rock, and more of Roger Williams 
and his compatriots, and his toleration. Let her 
banish nowand forever herdreamers and hcrsoph- 
ists and her fanatics, and call back again into her 
Stale administraiioh and into the national councils 
" her men of might, her grand in soul" — some of 
Ihem still live — and she will yet escape the dan- 
gers which now threaten her with isolation. 

Then, sir, while lam inexorably hostile to Puri- 
tan domination in religion or morals or literature 
or politics, I am not in favor of the proposed exclu- 
sion of New En^rland. I would have the Union 
as it was; and first. New England as she was. 
But if New England will have no union with 
slaveholders; if she isnotconieni with " the Union 
as it was," then upon her own head be the re- 
siionsibility for secession. And there will lie no 
more coercion now. F, at least, will be exa<'.tly 
consistent. 

And now, sir, can the central Stales, New York, 
New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, consent. i<i sep- 
aration? Can New York city? Sir, the trade of 
the South made her largely what she is. She 
was the factor and banker of th^Soulh — coiuui 
filled her harbor with shipping a»nrlier banks with 
i,'(dd. Rut in an evil hour the fo<dish, I will uoi 
say bi\d, " men of Golhem" persuaded her mer- 



13 



chant princi-8 — tigitinyt their fiidllcasnii in business . 
— that she could n-inin or force hark thi- snuiliern | 
tratk- hy war. War, indcid, lias fjiven her, just > 
now, II new biisinrss and tradt- prejit(;r and nuuf ^ 
profitabh.' tlian the old. Hut with disunion thai,] 
too, must perisli. And lut not Wall siifct, or any ! 
othergrciU interest, nierc.antik', maimfaf.lmiiijr.or 
comniercial, imugiiu! that it shall have powir, 
enough or wealth t-nough to Bland in the way of, 
reunion through peace. Lei tluni learn, one and 
all, that a public man wlui has tin- people as his 
support, is slron^ir than tliey, though he may 
not be worth a million, nor even one dollar. A 
iillle whilt.-agolhe banks said that they were king, 
but President Jackson speedily tausht them iheir 
mistake. Next, railroads assumed to be king; 
and cotton once vaunted largely liis kingship. Sir, 
these arc only of the royal family— princes of the . 
blood. There is but one king on earth. Politics , 
is king. I 

Huttoreturn: New Jersey, loo, is bound closely j 
to the Siiuih, and the South to her; and more audi 
longer than any other State, she remembered both i 
iu r duty to the Constitution and her interi st in | 
till- Union. And Pennsylvania, a sort of middle 
ground, just between the North and the South, 
and extending, also, to tiie West, fs united by 
nearer, if not stronger ties, to every section, tiian ', 
any other one Stale, unless it be Ohio. She was : 
— s!ie is yet — the keystone in the great but now 
crumbling arch of the Union. She is a border | 
State; and, more tluiii that, she has less within 
her of'the fanatical or disturbing element than I 
any of the Slates. The people of Pennsylvania i 
are quiet, peaceable, practical, and enterprising,' 
without being aggressive. They have more of the 
lionest old English and Geiiiian thrift than any 
other. No peoi>le mind more diligently their; 
own business. They have but one idiosyncrasy 
or specially — ll>e tanlT; and even that is really j 
far more a matter of tradition than of substantial ! 
interest. The industry, enterprise, and thrift of 
Pennsylvania are abundantly able to take care of 
iheiriselvesagainstanycompelition. In any event, j 
the Union is of more value, many times, to her , 
than any local interest. j 

But other ties also bind these States — Pennsyl-j 
raiiia and New Jersey, especially — to the South, 
and the Soulh to them. Only an imaginary lino 
separates the former from Delaware atid Mary-| 
land. The Delaware river, common to both Peiin- 
sj'lvaniaand New Jersey, flowsintoDelawarebay. 
The Susquehanna emfUies its water.s, through 
Pennsylvania and Maryland, into the Chesa- 
peake. And that great watershed itself, extending 
to Norfolk, and, ihcrefure, almost to the North 
Carolina line, does belong, and must ever belong, 
in common to the central and soutiiern States, 
under one Government; or else the line of separa- 
tion will be the Potomac to its head waters. All 
of Delaware and Maryland, and the counties of 
Accomac and Northampton, in Virginia, would,' 
in that event, follow the fortunes of the northern 
confederacy. In fact, sir, disagreeable as the idea 
may be to many within ti-.eir limit* on bothside.s, 
no man who looks at the map and then reflects 
upon history and the fjic; of natural causes, and 
considers the present at-tual und tlio future proba- 



|eiiner sine c.innot coniroi 
lyiii-j between the iniuitli 
llhe l{ud.soii. And if till 



bic posiiiuii of the hostile armies and navies at the 
I end of this war, ought for a moment i<> doubt that 
'either the Slates and counties which I have named 
I must go with the North, or Pennsylvania and 
j New Jersey with thi; South. Military force on 
r side c.innot conirol the destiny of iheStateH 
f the Chesapeakt; and 
bay were itself made 
the line, Delaware, and the Kastern .Shore of 
1 Maryland and Virginia, would biloiig to tlif 
i Ninth; while Norfolk, the only cupacinus harbor 
I on the souihiiistem coast, must be coiumanded by 
I the guns of some luw fortress u|>on Ca[ie Charles; 
I and Baltimore, the now queenly city, seated then 
I upon the very boundary of two rival, yes, hostile, 
I confederacies, would rapidly fall into decay. 

And now, sir, I will not ask whether the Norlh- 
i west can consent to separation from the South. 
I Never. Nature forbids. We are only a part of 
1 the great valley of the Mississippi. There is no 
I line oflatitutle upon which to separate. Neither 
party would desire the old line of 3(P 3U' on both 
.sides of the river; and there is no natural bound- 
|ary east and west. The nearest to it are the 
Ohio and Missouri river.-*. But that line would 
I leave Cincinnati and St. Louis, as bitrder cities, 
I like Baltimore, to decay, and, extending fifteen 
I hundred miles in length, would become the scene 
of an eternal border warfare without example even 
in the worst of times. Sir, we cannot, ought not, 
j will not, separate from the South. And if you of 
j the East who have lound this war against the 
Soulh and for the negro, gratifying to your hate or 
I profitable to your purse, will continue it till a sep- 
aration be forced betsveen the slavehohling and 
your non-slaveholding States, then, believe int, 
and accept it, as you did not the other solemn 
{ warnings of years jiasi, the day trliich ilMdes the 
A'oW/t/roiJi the Soulh, thai self-same day decrees eter- 
nal ditorce between the fl'est and the East. 
! Sir, our destiny is fixed. There is not one drop 
of rain which descending from the heavens, and 
I fertilizing our soil, causes it to yield an abundant 
I harvest, but flows into the Mississippi, und there, 
I mingling with the waters of that mii:hiy river, 
finds its way, at la.si, to the Gulf of Mexico. And 
J we must and will follow it with travel and trade, 
I not by treaty but by right, freely, peaceably, and 
j without restriction or tribute, under the same Gov- 
I ernment and flag, to its home in the bosom of that 
I Gulf. Sir, we will not remain after separation 
j from the South, a province or appanage of the 
I East, to bear her burdens and pay her taxes: nor 
hemmed in and isolated as we are, and without a 
sea-coast, could we long remain a distinct confed- 
: eracy. But whcrt-ver we go, married to the South 
I or the East, we bring with us three fourths of the 
j territories of that valley to the Rocky mountains, 
land it may be to the Pacific — the grandest and 
I most magnificent dowry that bride ever had to 
I bestow. 

! Then, sir. New England, freed at last from the 
I domination of her sojihisters, areamers and big- 
I ots, and restored to the control once more of her 
former liberal, tolerant, and conservative civiliza- 
; tion, will not stand in ihc way of the reunion of 
these States upon terms of fair and honoraH. ad- 
jiiaiment. And in thia great wo.k il" •■ :.-i' f -x; 



14 



and ijorilei^l.Hve States, too, will unite heart and; 
liHnd. T«i till' West, it is a necessiiy, and she de- i 
niands it. And lot not thu States now called con- i 
fi'ileraie insist upon separation and independence. || 
What did they demand at first? Security against! 
aljojitionipni within the Union. Pniteclion from i 
" the irrepressiiil'- conflict" and the domination of ' 
the nli.solnte numerical majority. A change of 
piihlie opinion, and con.«iequently of [loliiical par- i 
li'-s in the North and West, so that their local in- j 
stitiitions and domestic peace shonid no longer be j 
nidaniriTfd. And, now, sir, after two years of| 
persisli'ht .Tnd most gigantic effort on the part of ' 
tliis .Administration to compel them tosnbmit,but 
with utter and signal failure, the people of the free h 
Slates nr<r now or are fast becoming sati.sfied that ; 
the price of the Union is the titter 8Uj>pression of | 
abolitionism or anti-slavery as a political element, ;' 
and the complete subordination of the spirit l| 
of t'lnaticism and intermeddlin? wliich gave it j 
bind. In any exent, th^y are ready now, if I have I 
notgreatly mi.'»rea<l the signs of the limes, to re- ' 
turn to the old constitutional and actual basis of!! 
fifty years ago — thn-e fifths rule of representation, j! 
.speedy return of fugitives from labor, equal rights*' 
ill the 'I'erritorie.'', no more slavery agitation any- H 
where, and transit and temporary sojourn with'j 
slaves, without molestation, in the free Slates. I 
Without all the.se there could be neither peace nor ' 
p»-rmaiifnci? to a reston-d union of Slates "parti 
slave and part I'reo." With it, the South, in aJdi- h 
tion to all the other grent and multiplied benefits j| 
of union, would be far more secure in her slave Ij 
properly, In-r domestic institutions, than under a{| 
Bi parate government. Sir, let no man North or'| 
West, tell me that this would perpetuate African |i 
slavery. Iknowit. Butsodoes iheConslitution. '' 
I repeat, sir, it is the price of ilip Union. Whoever!; 
hates iifgro slavery more than he loves the Union, | 
must demand separation at last. I think that you ! 
can never abolish slavery by fijljling. Certainly {| 
you never can till you liave first destroyed the '\ 
South, and then, in theIangunge,firstofiVIr. Dou^- : 
las ar.d afterwards of Mr. Seward, convened this'! 
(iovernment into an imperial dtspotism. And, sir, !' 
whenever I am forced to a choice between the loss ' 
lo my own country and race, of jiersonal and polit- '' 
ieal liberty with all its bli-.ssings,and the invoiiin-' 
tary domestic servitude of the negro, I shall not '| 
hesitate one moment to choose the latter niter- '| 
native. The sole question to-day is between ihe 
Union with slavery, or final disunion, and, I think, 
anarchy and despotism. I am for the Union. It ' 
WiiH good enough for my. fathers. It is good 
I nough for ns and our children after us. | 

And, sir, let no man in the South tell me that 
sh" has lieen invaded, and that all the horrors im- 
j>lied in those most terrible of words, civil war, ' 
have bei-n visited upon her. I know that, too. ' 
Hut we, also, of the North and West, in every I; 
•St.'iie and by thousands, who have dared so much 
as lo question the i^ificiples and policy, or doubt 
the honesty, of this Adminisiraiion and its party, 
have aniTered everything that tlie worst desfiotism 
could inflict, except only li.as of life itself uprin 
liie sciitlold. Some even have died for the cause 
by the hand of the assassin. And can wc forget? 
Wever, never. Time will but burn the memory 



of these wrongs deeper into our hearts. But shall 
we break up the Union? Shall we destroy the 
Government because usurping tyrants have held 
[>ossession and perverted it to the most cruel of 
oppressions? Was it ever so done in any other 
country? In Athens? Rome? England? Any- 
where? No, sir; let us expel the usurper, and 
restore ilie Constitution and laws, the rights of 
the States, and the liberties of the people; and 
then, in the country of our fathers, uniler the 
Union of our fathers, and tlie old fl:ig — the sym- 
bol once again of the free and the brave — let us 
fulfill the <rrand mission which Providence has 
apjiointed for us among the nations of the earth. 

And now, sir, if it be the will of all sections to 
unite, then upon what terms? Sir, between the 
South and most of the States of the North, and 
all of the West, there is but one subject in con- 
troversy — slavery. It is the only question, said 
Mr. Calhoun twenty-five years ago, of sufficient 
mfl|;nitude and potency to divide this Union; and 
divide it it will, he added, or drench the country 
in blood if not arrested. It has done both. But 
settle it on the original basis of the Constitution, 
and give to each section the power to protect itself 
within the Union, and now, after the terrible les- 
sons of the past two years, the Union will be 
stronger than before, and, indeed, endure forages. 
Woe to the man. North or South, who, to the 
third or the fourth generation, should teacii men 
disunion. 

An^j now the way to reunion: what so easy' 
Behold to-day two separate governments in one 
country, and without a natural dividing line; 
with two presidents and cabinets, and a double 
Congress; and ytl each under a constiiuiion so 
exactly similar, the one to the other, that a stran- 
ger could scarce discern the difference. Was 
ever folly and madness like this? Sir, it is not 
in the nature of things that it should so continue 
long. 

But why speak of ways or terms of reunion 
now? The will is yet wanting in both sections. 
Union is consent and good will and fraternal 
affection. War is force, hate, revenge. Is the 
country tired at last of war? Has the experiment 
been tried long enough ? Has sufficient blood 
been shed, treasure expended, and misery inflicted 
in both the North and the South? What then? 
Stop fighting. Make an armistice — no formal 
treaty. Withdraw your army from the seceded 
Slates. Reduce both armie.s to a fair and suffi- 
cient peace establi.shment. Declare absolute free 
trade between the North and South. Buy and^ 
sell. Agree upon a zojlverein. Recall your 
fleets. Break up your blockade. Reduce your 
navy. Restore travel. Open up railroads. Re- 
establish the telegraph. Reunite your express 
companies. No more Monitors and iron-ilnds, 
but set your friendly steamers and steamships 
again in motion. Visit the North and West. 
Visit the South. Exchange nt wspapers. Mi- 
grate. Inlermarry. Let slavery alone. Hold 
elections at the appointed times. Let ns choose 
a new President in sixty-four. And when the 
gospel of peace shall have descended again from 
heaven into their hearts, and the gospel of aboli- 
tion and of hate been expelled, let your clergy 



16 



subjects it) controversy l>c n-fcrrcd to SwitKerlund , 1 1 
or RiiKsia, or nny otlu-r ittipaitiul and incorriipli- ;; 
hie Power or Stiite ill Euroiir. liiilul lust, sir, the i' 
|ieo|ile i)f tliest; suvcrai Slates here, ul iiitiui?, iniist i , 
lie tli'' fina! arl)iter(irilii.sgreat(iiinrrel in America; '; 
Hiul the pe(i|>le and Slates of Hie Northwest, ilie ' 
■|nt:di,itors who shall stand, like the |iro|ih»'l, be-' 
twixi the li villi; and the dead, that tin plague of 
(lisiiiiion niiiy be 8lav'.'<l. 

Sir, this w.tr, horrible a.s it iti, has tniii;lit u.saii 
some ol"lhe moat iinporlani and salutary lessons 
which tver a people learned. 

First, it has annihilated, in twenty monihH,all 
the false and pernicious theoiiis and teachin!;sof 
.iboliiionism for thirty years, iind which n mere 
appeal to facts and arLjiinu nt conld not have un- ; 
tauijht in half a century. We have learned that ' 
the South is not weak, dependent, unenterprising;, 
or corrupted by .slavery, luxury, and idleness; 
l>ut piiwerful, earnest, warlike, enduring, self- , 
supporting:, full of enersiy, and inexhausiibl j in ji 
resonrces. We have been lau'^ht, and now con-! 
fess II openly, that African slavery, instead of 1 
bein^ a source of weakness tt) the South, is one ' 
of lor main elfmeiils of slrcnsth; and hence tin? i 
" military necessity," we are told, of abolishiiifj ; 
slavi ry in order to suppress the nb' llion. We 
have learned, also, that the noii-shiveluddini; while ; 
men of the South, millions in number, are im- 1 
movably allaehed to the iiisiilulion, and are its 
ciiief support; and abolitionists iiave found out, i 
to ih.ir infinite surprise and di.-Jgusl, that the slave I 
is not «' panting for freedom," nor piniii'i; in silent 
but leveiigt ful grief over cruelly and oppres- 1 
siou iiirticied upon him, but happy, contented, | 
atiHohed deeply to his master, and unwilling — at j 
least not eager — to accept the precious boon of 
freedom wliieh tliey have profiered liiin. lajipeal : 
to the Prcaideiit for the pniof. I appeal to the fact ; 
thill fewer ."lavus have escaped, even from Vir- 
piiiia, in now nearly two years, than Arnold and j 
Cornwallis carried away in six months of iiiva- , 
sion in 1781. Finally, sir, we have learned, and | 
the South, loo, what the history of the world | 
ages ago, and our own history might have taught 1 
us, that servile insurrection is the least of the dan- i 
gers to wiiicli she isexposed. Hirnce.in my dulib- j 
erate judgment, African slavery, as an institution, i 
will com-.' out of this conflict fifty-fofd stronger! 
than when the war bes;an. i 

The South, too, sir, has learned most important j 
lessons; and among them, that personal cnurage ^ 
is a quality common to all sections, and that, in ■ 
battle, the men of the North, and especially of the i 
West, are their equals. Hitherto there has been j 
a mutual and most mischievous mistake upon both j 
sides. The South overvalued iis own personal i 
courage, and undervalued ours, and we too readily | 
consented; but at the same time she exaggerated 
our aggregate strength and resources, and uiider- 



CMtimated herown;«nd we fell into the aame error; 
and hence the original and fatal mistake or vice of 
the. military poliey of ihe North, ami which has 
already broken down tin- war by it.s own weight — 
the belii-f thai wecoiihl bring overwhilming num- 
bers and power into tin' (iehl anil upon the sea, 
and crush out the South at a Idow. Rut twenty 
months of terrible warfare have corn cod many 
errors, and lau<;ht lis the wiHdom of a century. 
.\iiil now, sir, every om-of liieRe lessons will profit 
us all for agi's i<i come; and if we do laic reunite, 
will bind IIS in a closer, firmer, (flore durable union 
than ever liefore. 

1 ha \e now, Mr. Speaker, finished what I desired 
to say at this time, upon the great question of the 
n union of tljese States. I hnvi> spoken freely and 
boldly — not wisely, it may be, for the present, or 
for myself perHonally, but most wis<ly for the 
future and for my country. Not couriing cen- 
sure, 1 yet do not shrink from it. My own im- 
mediate personal iiiteresiN, and my chances Just 
now for the more material rewards of ambition, 
I again surrender as ho.niages to that gueat iikrk- 
AFTtn, the echo of whose fooipit ps ;;lready I hear 
along the highway of lime. Whoever, here 
or els'.'where, beliiives that war can restore the 
Uniomif these States; whoever would have a war 
'■ for the abolition of shivery, or disunion; and he 
! who demands southern independence and final 
separation, let him speak, for hiiu I have offended. 
Devoted to the Union from the beginning, I will 
not desert it now in this the hour of its sorest trial, 
i Sir, it was the day-dream of my boyho.id, the 
cherished desire of my heart in yoiiili,ihat 1 might 
' live to see the hundredih anniversary of our na- 
tional independence, and, as orator of the day, 
exult in the expanding glories and greatness of 
the siill United Stales. That vision lingers yet 
1 botbre my eyes, obscured indeed by the clouds 
i and thick darkness and the blood of civil war. 
I But, sir, if the men «»f this generation are wise 
; enough to profit liy the h ird experi»ne< «if ihc|v 
1 two years, and will turn their hearts now f 
i bloody intents lo the words and arts of peace, (. 
I day will find us again the United States. And It 
not earlier, as 1 would desire and believe, al hast 
! upon that day let the great work of reunion becon- 
I summated; that thenceforth, for ages, the States 
and the people who shall fill up this mighty con- 
I liiient, united under one Constitution, and in one 
I Union, and the .sam«. destiny, shall celebrate it as 
the birthday both of Independence and of the Groal 
Restoration. 
I Sir, 1 repeal it, we art; in the midst of the Very 
I crisis of this revolution. If, to-day, we secure 
peace and bigiii the work of reunion, we shall 
yet e.'-cape; if not, I see nothing before us but uni- 
versal political and social revolution, anarchy, 
and bloodshed, compared with which the Reign of 
Terror in France was a merciful visitation. 



15 



and iho cluirclies meet again in Clirislian inter- 
ciiurf!!', Nniili and South. Lft the stcret orders 
and voliminry associations iverywhere reunite as 
breilirt-n once more. In short, give to all the 
natiiial and all the artificial causes which impel 
us loj^fthi-r, their fullest sway. Let time do his 
office — drying tear.*i, dispelling sorrows, mellow- 
ing pa.ssio'n, and making herb and grass and tree 
to grow again upon thi; hundred battle-field.s of 
tliis ii irible war. 

"Hut this is recognition." It is not formal rec- 
ognition, to whicini will not consent. Recogni- 
tion nil w, and attempted permanent treaties ai)out 
boundary, travel, and trade, and partition of Ter- 
ritories, would end in a war fiercer and more dis- 
astrous than before. Recognition is absolute dis- 
union; and not between tlie slave and the free 
Slates, but with Delaware and Maryland as part 
of the North, and Kentucky and Missouri part 
of the West. Rut wherever the actual line, every 
evil and mischief uf disunion is implied in it. And 
for similar reasons, sir, I would not at this time 
press hastily a convention of the States. The 
men who now would hold seals in such a conven- 
tion, would, upon both sides, if both agreed to 
attend, come together full of the hale and bitter- 
ness inseparable from a civil war. No, sir; let 
passion have time to cool, and reason to resume 
its sway. It cost thirty years of desperate and 
most wicked patitMice and industry to destroy or 
imjiair the magnificent temple of this Union. Let 
us be content if, within three years, we shall be 
abb' to restore it. 

But certainly what I propose is informal, prac- 
tical recognition. And that is precisely what ex- 
ists to-day, and has existed, more or less defined, 
from the first. Flags of truce, exchange of pris- 
oners, and all your other observances of the laws, 
forms, and courtesies of war are acts of recogni- 
tion. Sir, does any man doubt to-day that there 
is a confederate government at Richmonil, and 
that it is a " belligerent?" Even the Secretary of 
Stale has discovered it at last, though he has writ- 
ten pofulerous fidios of polished rhetoric to prove 
that it is not. Will continual war, then, without 
. xtended and substantial success, make the con- 
federate Stales any the less a government in fact.' 

" But it confesses disunion." Yes, just as the 
surijeon, who sets your fractured limb in splints, 
in order that it may be healed, admits that it is 
broken. But the Government will have failed to 
" crush out the rebellion." Sir, it has failed. You 
Went to war to prove that we had a Government. 
With what result.' To the peojile of the loyal 
Stnti's it has, in your hands, been the Government 
«)f King Stork, but to the confederate States, of 
King Log. " But the rebellion will have tri- 
umphed." Belter triumph to-day than ten years 
hence. Bull deny it. The rebellion will at last 
be crushed out in ihe only way in which it ever 
was possible. " Hut no one will be hung at the 
end of war." Neither will there be, though the 
war should last half a century, except by the mob 
or iIk- hand of arbitrary power. But really, sir, 
if there is to be no hanging, let this Administra- 
tion, and all who have done its liidding every- 
where, rejoice and be exceeding glad. 

And now, sir, allow me a word upon a subject 



Jl of very great interest at this moment, and most 
i important il may be in its influence upon the fu- 
I lure — FOREIGN MEDIATION. I speak not of armed 
•and hostile intervention, which 1 would resist as 
: long as but one man was left to strike a blow .1'. 
the invader. But friendly mediation — the kiiuHy 
ofler of an impartial Power to stand asailaysman 
,. betweenlheconlendingpartiesin ihis mosibloody 
I and exhausting strife — ought to be met in n spirit 
as cordial and ready as that in which it is prof- 
Ifered. Ii would be churlish to refuse. Certainly, 
.'it is not consistent with the former dignity of this 
I Government to ask for mediation; neither, sir, 
would it befit its ancient magnanimity to reject ii . 
; As proposed by the Emperor of France, 1 would 
] accept It at once. Now is the auspicious moment. 
j It is the speediest, easiest, most graceful mode of 
; suspending hosiilities. Let us hear no more of 
the mediationof cannon and the sword. The day 
; for all that has gone by. Let us be staiesnien 
! at last. Sir, I give thanks that some, ai least, 
among the Republican party serm ready now lo 
' lift ihem.selves up to the height of ihisgieat argu- 
ment, and to deal with it in the spirit of the ])a- 
' triots and great men of other countries and ages, 
i'and of the belter days of the United States. 
i; And now, sir, whatever may have bci 11 the 
I motives of England, France, and the other grea: 
■' Powers of Europe, in withholding recognition s<> 

I long from the confederate States, the South and the 

I I North are both indebted to them for an immense 
'[ public service. The South has proved her aliility 
\[ to maintain iierself by her own strength and re- 
sources, without foreign aid, moral or material. 

! And the North and West — the whole country , iii- 
I deed — these great Powers have served incalcuabl y , 
i'by holding back a solemn proclamation to ilic 
' world that the Union of these States was finally 
iland formally dissolved. They have left to us 
1; every motive and every chance for reunion; and 
j \ if that lias been the purpose of England especially 
I — our rival so long; interested more than any other 
I in disunion and the consequent weakening of our 
! great naval and commercial power, and suflering, 
loo, as she has suffered, so long and severely be- 
cause of this war — I do not hesitate to say thai 
I she has performed an act of unselfish heroism 
I without example in history. Was such indeed 
i her purpose.' Let her answer before the impar- 
;■ tial tribunal of posterity. In any event, after the 
great reaction in public sentiment in the North 
land West, lo be followed after some time by n 
; like reaction in the South, foreign recognition now 
of the confederate Stales could avail Mule to delay 
or prevent final reunion; if, as I firmly believe, re- 
union be not only possible but inevitable. 

Sir, I have not spoken of foreign arbitration. 
That is quite another question. 1 think it im- 
practicable, and fear it as dangerous. The very 
I Powers — or any oilier Power — which have hesi- 
tated to aid disunion directly or by force, might, 
as authorized arbiters, most readily pronounce 



for it nl last. V 



ery gi 



Tiid, indeed, would be tl 



tribunal before which the great quesliijn of the 
Union of tliese Slates and the final destiny of ili!."* 
continent for age^, should be luard, and hisKuir 
through all lime, the enibassjadors who .vLmiiil 
argue it. And if boih belligercnla consent, Ici tli*- 



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